Unbearable

by Alaska Angelini

  “What have you done?” I moved back, not caring about the pain from my hair anymore. I couldn’t be in here. Couldn’t face what I had spent months running away from.

  “This will be your new living quarters while you’re here. Which, with what I just saw, is probably going to be for a very long time.”

  I didn’t think. I put everything into the kick aimed between his legs, but he had been waiting. Prepared. Faster than I could process, he slammed me to the floor.

  “I knew you’d fight.” Weight settled on top of me and I could feel my eyes grow wide as he pinned my arms over my head and forced himself between my thighs. I thrashed, screaming, trying to buck him off.

  “This is kidnapping. You can’t do this.” Still, I fought, trying to break his hold on my wrists.

  “No. You’re dead,” he growled. “At least you want to be, so who cares what happens to you from here on out. As long as the result’s the same, right?”

  Another scream broke free, every fear imaginable pouring over me as I struggled to get loose. Would he rape me? Beat me? Torture me? I’d wanted to die, not suffer. I’d done enough of that already.

  “Get off of me!” Burning enflamed my throat at the force of my yell.

  My hands were brought together as he managed to get them in one of his. With the other, he ripped open my shirt, sending buttons flying in all directions. I froze and met his eyes, the effects of the pills softening the terror my mind should have comprehended. Regardless, my body knew. Trembling took over every inch. Even my jaw was shaking, as if I were cold.

  “There you are,” he whispered, squeezing my breast through my bra. “Do you feel that, slave?” His hand moved, reaching into the pocket of his pants. He brought out a knife, snapping his wrist to cause the blade to slide out. “Real fear.” My chest rose and fell at the uneven breaths. “This is how you should have reacted when I put that gun to your head.”

  A cry escaped me as he lowered the tip between my cleavage and began to trace down.

  “I’m not afraid to die,” I said, staring into his eyes. “But I don’t have to get there raped and cut up.” I tried my best to sink into the carpet, to get further away from the knife. I wasn’t successful. Stinging next to my left breast had me sucking in air. The small wound could have been a million times deeper considering the panic that registered.

  “Rape…” his mouth twisted, “I suppose I could rape you, since you’re technically a no one right now.”

  The blade tugged at the thin material between my breasts.

  “Truth is, slave, I’m not going to rape you. At least, not right now. First, you’re going to watch a little movie I have set up, just for you.” The knife folded and went back into his pocket. He lifted, but held onto my arms as he began dragging me along the carpet. My legs scrambled apart and dug in, trying to find footing.

  “Up you go.”

  The power behind his grip was crushing as his fingers bit into my forearms. He hauled me to my feet and I didn’t wait for another opportunity. The moment his hands left me, I reared my fist back and caught the edge of his chin. It was quickly followed by my flat stomping down against the top of his shoe. A grunt escaped him as my next punch landed in his stomach. I spun around, sprinting for the door. His arms wrapped around my waist to halt my momentum and he turned, stalking over and slamming me on the mattress. Again, his weight pushed into me while he locked my wrists in handcuffs wrapped around the bars of the headboard.

  “You have a hell of swing, slave. I have to say, I’m impressed.”

  “Fuck you. Who do you think you are? You better let me go right now,” I screamed, pulling against the cuffs. Slowly, he lifted from the bed.

  “You’re not going anywhere.” A TV directly on the wall from the bed came on as he clicked the remote he’d grabbed from the dresser. “You want death so bad, you’re going to watch it. I hope you have a strong stomach. Guns, knife wounds, razor blades. Each of these people were successful in their attempts to end their life. If you’re going to kill yourself, you’re going to see what happens to your body after you’re gone. Someone has to clean up the mess you leave behind. You’re not going to be irresponsible enough to go out without knowing what you’re leaving behind.”

  My mouth parted and I tried to turn to the side. I couldn’t watch that. Couldn’t see dead people. I’d seen enough dead children in the hospital where I worked after college.

  “Oh no.” He grabbed my foot, somehow having moved already to the side of the bed. A strap came out and he buckled the cuff around my ankle as I tried kicking at him. The other was placed just as fast and I was effectively tied down.

  “I don’t want to watch this.” Begging laced my words. A silent plea for him to make this stop. The look he gave me was hard. Unmoving. He pushed the button, a bedroom coming into focus on the screen. My eyes squeezed shut, covering me in darkness, but I couldn’t ignore the words as a man began to talk. The volume increased even as the bed shifted.

  “Open your eyes, slave.” The threat was there, but I ignored it, forcing my lids closed even tighter. The click that followed from the blade of the knife didn’t even bring me back to the room. “For every time you disobey my command, you’ll lose an article of clothing.”

  The subject appears to have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. As you can see, the blood splatter against the pillows and wall suggests he had his head tilted back, like so, as he pulled the trigger.

  A sob escaped me as the clasp on my slacks was unbuttoned and the zipper slowly tugged down. I tried moving my hips to the side to get away from him pulling them off further, but the restraints on my legs were tight, not allowing me much room to work with. The sound of fabric shredding under the blade pushed me into the shakes again. I could feel his hand and the pressure of where he was holding the material up just short of my pussy.

  “Such pretty panties for someone who has nothing to live for. Do you always dress so nicely?”

  I didn’t have to see what he was referring to. The white silk with a faded rose print had been beautiful when I’d seen them the first time. If I ever splurged on anything, it was intimates. But since Ronnie was gone, I hadn’t given my collection much thought.

  “You’ve gone far enough. Turn off the TV and let me go.”

  Air brushed against my thigh as he worked the knife down.

  “Open your eyes. The panties are next, then the shirt, the matching bra…”

  I couldn’t bear the thought of being nude in front of him. No one had ever seen me that way except my husband. Slowly, I lifted my lids. My slacks were cut down to my shin. With one swift pull, he severed the leg section completely.

  “Good girl. Now watch the movie as I do the other side. If you look away or close your eyes again, I’ll move right to the panties and won’t stop until you have nothing else left to cut off. If that’s the case, you’re not going to like what comes next.”

  A tear escaped and I almost couldn’t believe my emotions had finally broken through the medication. With the single drop, came more. And more. Until I was blinded by a mass of blurring colors of old blood, a very graphic wound to the back of the head, and bugs buzzing around them in a dark cloud.

  “I’m going to be sick,” I barely got out through the deep intake of breath. Seeing everything in detail, I could almost smell the rotting stench of death.

  “No one’s stopping you. Keep watching.”

  My pants were completely off now and he was lying next to me on the bed, propped up on his elbow as if we were lounging in bed as a couple, watching the nightly news before we went to sleep. Like Ronnie and me used to do. Although, I wasn’t restrained then. Or being forced to watch crime scene footage, or whatever it was I was viewing.

  “Do you enjoy this?” My head didn’t turn toward him. I stared ahead, feeling myself beginning to go numb. I was good at that. If I just kept staring at the wall on the screen, or the upper most corner, I could deal.

  Fingers gripped both sides of my chi
n as he turned my face to his. “Do you enjoy this, Master?” he said through clenched teeth. “Always refer to me as such. If you don’t, this right here will be nothing compared to what will come.”

  It didn’t make sense to me why he’d want to be addressed that way. A power trip? It’d explain why he was doing what he was. But regardless of what he showed me, I couldn’t bend to him. I wouldn’t die knowing I’d been weak by anyone’s standards but my own. “You’re not my master. You’re my kidnapper.”

  A malicious smile pulled at the side of his lips. Slowly, he leaned forward, the tip of the knife pointing at me.

  “What are you doing?” I tried easing my shoulders away as he neared, but I didn’t move but maybe an inch or two. He didn’t speak a word as he inserted the blade under the thin fabric just below my cleavage. The flat of the knife came to rest over my breastbone and he lifted the material, slicing through. A whimper escaped as my breasts fell free and heat scorched my cheeks. Next were the straps, and then, he started with my silk shirt. My small sounds turned to something between a growl and groan. I hated him in that moment. And I couldn’t remember ever feeling so strongly toward a person.

  “You know…” He yanked the material free from my body, leaving me completely bare except for my panties. “Sometimes in life, we’re given obstacles. Tests, even. Some can handle them. Others cannot. You appear stronger to me than someone who’s ready to quit on life.”

  The knife traced over my breast and around my hard nipple, puckered from the cool air, down to my ribs. The sharp caress left me in a strange place inside. I feared the implications of the weapon, but at the same time, it wasn’t hurting me. It tickled in an inviting manner. I hadn’t been touched in so long, it felt weird to like something so wrong. What erased all sense of pleasure was the fact that it was him doing it.

  “I’m not quitting, I’m just finished,” I said, moving my hips to get further away from the path he was tracing. “There’s a difference, whether you want to see it or not. I’ve lived my life. Had a great family. They’re gone and I want to go be with them. That’s not giving up. That’s just finalizing what I have so I can move forward.”

  The blade lifted and his head tilted. “You really believe that, slave?”

  “Of course I do. There’s nothing left here for me. My life is done. I’ve lived what I was meant to. Now it’s over and so am I.”

  “Who’s to say there’s not a new chapter waiting for you? Not to replace the first, but to expand on what you’ve known?”

  My head shook. “I don’t want a new chapter. I want my life to end on this one. It was perfect.” Tears came to my eyes again. “They were perfect.”

  “They’re gone now,” he said softly, “but you’re not. If you were meant to die too, you all would have been taken together. Or, the first time you tried to commit suicide.” His finger traced down the raw red mark on my wrist. “Or here.” The deep blue of his eyes lightened, sympathy beginning to etch into his handsome features. That emotion was bizarre considering what he had been forcing me to watch and doing to me. “You’re alive, Diane, and I think it’s meant to stay that way.”

  As if his words were acid to my insides, I felt my aching heart melt, but not in a good way. “No!” Tears ran down my face as I whipped my head back and forth, going wild. I refused to believe I had to live another day without them, not to mention possibly decades to come. “It ends now,” I screamed. “Do it. Take that knife and get to fucking work, or leave me to it.”

  “You don’t deserve death. Not yet.” The emotion he’d had on his face was gone, replaced with anger. The sapphire gaze now nearly onyx. A tug against one side of my panties made me sway and I fought against the handcuffs as he moved over and sliced through the other. With a jerk, he pulled them free, tossing them to the floor with my other ruined clothing. “Humiliation has the power to break some. Do you think it’ll break you, slave?”

  I spit in his face, not caring about the consequences anymore. “Fuck you and your humiliation. Is that what you’re trying to do? Because I have news for you, no one has the power to break me.”

  With a leisurely wipe, he removed my saliva, never breaking his stare. “Challenge accepted.” He rose from the bed, increasing the volume even more. The woman on the screen was lying in a bathtub full of blood, one of her arms dangling over the edge. The emptiness in her face had me turning away. That look, those hollow eyes, were going to haunt my dreams. I’d never seen anyone dead from killing themselves before. These victims on the screen…it truly scared me more than I could have ever imagined. So soulless. So…empty.

  The closet opened and he stepped in, only to return with a box that I knew all too well. My head rose and turned away, more as a response to flee. But I wasn’t going anywhere. Couldn’t, thanks to him.

  “I hope you don’t mind. I had my people take a tour of your lovely home and they found these in the closet. It shouldn’t bother you if I go through them.”

  Cautiously, I looked back. “Don’t,” I whispered. The desperation in the one word was enough to make his eyebrow raise.

  “Too bad. I haven’t gotten the chance to really take a good look. Only a glimpse. I’m dying to relive pieces of your life. I have a few other things in the closet too. We’ll get to those eventually. Right now, I think it’s time we take a trip down memory lane.”

  He left the movie blaring as he climbed back up next to me. I turned away, again, as he took the lid off. Fingers gripped my face, bringing me back to look in his direction. He didn’t let go as he picked up the first picture. It was one of Caylee when she was two months old. Ronnie was holding her propped up close to his face as he smiled big at the camera.

  “Look at them, Diane.” He moved it in closer. “Do you think they’d like to see you hurting yourself?” The picture was held up for a few seconds before it dropped and he reached in, grabbing another. One of me standing with Caylee in front of her school on the first day of Pre-Kindergarten. The last grade she ever made it to. “Look at her, slave! Look at that beautiful smile. The way she’s clinging to your hand because she knows of the separation that’s coming. But even in this picture, I can see she’s brave. I bet she didn’t so much as shed a tear at your parting.”

  I screamed, jerking against him as agony shredded my insides. For the life of me, I couldn’t close my eyes no matter how much I wanted. He was right. She hadn’t cried or clung to me like some of the other children. But now, unlike before, I could see the nervousness in her smile. It broke my heart.

  The picture dropped and more flashed before me. Halloween, Christmas, movie night. Even one of the three of us taken outside of The Grand Canyon. A trip Ronnie had surprised us with.

  “Do they like what they see?” His yell vibrated my insides with the growl embedded in the end. The angrier he became, the more I could feel the person I’d been before Ronnie and Caylee brush along the surface. Back then, I’d been hardened by what fate had handed me. But when I got with them, I softened, thinking I had finally received my happy ending. I was wrong. It made the fight within me spark even more. A growing ember in the darkness that engulfed me. Slowly, it was flickering to life, smoldering my core in the deep, dark recesses I’d buried it in, like a living monster ready to incinerate its prey. Master would become that meal I yearned to take a bite out of. He’d get more than he’d bargained for with me. I’d make sure of it.

  By some miracle, I was able to lower my lids and calm my breathing while I thought over his question. “Do they like what they see?” When I opened my eyes, I let the hate I had over my life pour out with my words. “I’ll find out soon enough.”

  Chapter 3

  Master

  Aug 30th (Day 1)

  Slave Diane is stronger than I ever thought. For two hours, I tortured her with pictures of her family, watching them rain all over her curvy body until she eventually closed off completely. Stripped bare, blood and death in the background, still, she’s not emotionally moved to where I want her. Even
now, as I watch the monitor, she lies covered in her past, completely gone from the present. Unaffected by what still plays on her TV. I can’t remember a slave waiting this long before screaming for me to turn it off. But she won’t. I know her spirit. Her pride.

  There’s more than just her denial to follow any of my orders or reach out for help. Something happened. I saw the change take place right before my very eyes. Deep within hers. I can’t explain it other than a feeling I got while looking into her green depths. The darkness within called to me. Kept me locked into place until all I knew was the unsettling calm I was trapped in.

  The real Diane is now here. How long she’s hidden herself is beyond my knowledge. From records and stories from the people I talked to, she was a quiet, but kind woman. The one who resides here now is neither. She’s like me. She’s…full of hate.

  I couldn’t help but go back to the moment in my mind when I saw the change. “I’ll find out soon enough.” Meaning, she would know when she killed herself. My gaze had narrowed at the threat. I was ready to throttle her for the remark, but she’d stopped me with the malice I felt radiating in my direction. She wanted to hurt me. Possibly more. Did Diane harbor homicidal thoughts? I wasn’t sure. For anyone to give me pause or make me question their intentions, that was saying something. I feared no one, but in that second before I felt the calm, she emitted something so dark, I knew it easily matched what I held. If her curves hadn’t already enticed me and made me want her; that covert side of her personality certainly did. But not in the way of a traditional lover. The need to break her apart more than I ever had with anyone was overwhelming. To unravel not only her mind, but the secrets of her body. For two hours, my cock stayed in a constant state of throbbing. I only left when I couldn’t take it anymore. With each act of defiance, I became even more tempted to have her.

  A yawn fell from her mouth, but she didn’t turn her head or close her eyes. Enough was enough. She’d been in her safe, little cocoon longer than I allowed any of the others. It was time to go even further and bring her back to me. She wouldn’t like what I had in store. The pain I’d put her through would make it impossible for her to leave, but it had to be done. Where she was at in her head wasn’t a good place, and I wouldn’t allow it. Distant slaves were dangerous slaves. To me and themselves.